1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multiplayer participation type gaming system having walls for limiting dialogue voices outputted from a gaming machine.
2. Related Art
Commercial multiplayer participation type gaming machines through which a large number of players participate in games, so-called mass-game machines, have conventionally been known. In recent years, horse racing game machines have been known. These mass-game machines include, for example, a gaming machine body provided with a large main display unit, and a plurality of terminal devices, each having a sub display unit, mounted on the gaming machine body (for example, refer to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0123354).
The plurality of terminal devices is arranged facing the main display unit on a play area of rectangular configuration when viewed from above, and passages are formed among these terminal devices. Each of these terminal devices is provided with a seat on which a player can sit, and the abovementioned sub display unit is arranged ahead of the seat or laterally obliquely ahead of the seat so that the player can view the sub display unit. This enables the player sitting on the seat to view the sub display unit, while viewing the main display unit placed ahead of the seat.
On the other hand, dialogue controllers configured to speak in response to the user's speech, and control the dialogue with the user, have been disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publications Nos. 2007/0094004, 2007/0094005, 2007/0094006, 2007/0094007 and 2007/0094008. It can be considered that when this type of dialogue controller is mounted on the mass-game machine, the player can interactively participate in a game, further enhancing the player's enthusiasm.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0033040 discloses a system and method of identifying the language of an information source and extracting the information contained in the information source. Equipping the above system on the mass-game machine enables handling of multi-language dialogues. This makes it possible for the players of different countries to participate in games, further enhancing the enthusiasm of the players.
In the mass-game machines, an increased number of players simultaneously participating in the game increases the number of competitors and cooperators to the players, thereby enhancing game enthusiasm. In gaming centers, the number of times the players can play games per day will be increased to improve the working rates of the mass-game machines. Therefore, increasing the number of terminal devices arranged in can be considered by reducing the space between these terminal devices. However, narrow space between the terminal devices causes the following drawback. That is, particularly when the dialogue controllers are mounted on the terminal devices, the dialogues between the players and the terminal devices may leak and become obstructive to the players concentrating their attention on the game.
In addition, since players play their games in a close position, they can notice statuses of games of the other players. Therefore, for example, when a player often loses his or her games while the other player playing a game next to the player wins a big award, the player may feel uncomfortable, and thus, can not concentrate his or her games.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a commercial multiplayer participation type gaming machine that further enhancing the enthusiasm of players by mounting a dialogue controller on a mass-game machine. Even if the space between terminal devices is reduced to increase the number of the terminal devices arranged in a play area, this gaming machine is adapted to prevent leakage of the dialogues between the players and the terminal devices, making it easy for the players to concentrate on the game.
In addition, the present invention has an object of providing a commercial multiplayer participation type gaming machine that prevents from distracting a player from a game, for example, when the player often loses his or her games while the other player playing a game next to the player wins a big award.